While Ryan Braun’s suspension over a positive drug test has ended with it being overturned, I think everybody recognizes that his trial has only just begun.

While the suspension being lifted was a boost to the Milwaukee Brewers, it probably would have actually been better for Braun’s reputation had he gotten suspended but for reasons that were shown to clearly be a mistake or unintentional, much likeJ.C. Romero.

Sad? Maybe, but utterly true.

As it stands, the debate in the court of public opinion over his guilt or innocence is just getting started.

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The fact of the matter is that nothing is clear as of yet.

Yesterday I wrote an article in response to the mainstream media not covering what I believed to be pertinent and relevant information acquired from anonymous sources, same as anybody else reporting on the story.

The point of writing it was to attempt to provide a moment of clarity in what I felt was quickly becoming nothing more than a witch hunt, even though the reality of the situation was that there is still so much that we don’t actually know.

Anybody who has followed me for any amount of time knows that I don’t believe anybody 100% when it comes to athletics and drugs, and I’m a skeptic by nature, but as of this moment I can’t see any reason to go around destroying Braun and pretending the “I know he’s guilty!” version of the story is the absolute truth.

The actual fact of the matter is that we don’t know for sure what has transpired in the Braun saga, despite people acting like they do.

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With that established, isn’t it a bit soon for a bunch of people who were all wrong on a judgment about a suspension to regroup and instantly rush to judgment on the same individual yet again? I just found it … sad, really. It was as if nobody had learned the lesson that was just proven to them.

I know some apparently feel comfortable with ruining a guy’s reputation over information that still has questions about it, but I don’t.

The sad fact of the matter is that — while it would be wrong — what could provide clarity and closure to this debate is a leak of the ruling from Shyam Das. If that were to happen, then we wouldn’t have to speculate on what he did and did not know any longer.

At that point I think we could probably make an accurate judgment on exactly what transpired and why Das ruled the way he did. Until then though, everybody’s just guessing as far as I’m concerned.

Doing it over trade rumors and potential performance is one thing, but I’m not okay with dragging anybody’s life through the mud based on assumptions.

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Before I found the information I used in my previous post on Braun, I had actually intended to make a light post about the controversy, simply stating something I had observed on the day the suspension was overturned.

CBS Sports

Fox Sports

NBC Sports

Sports Illustrated

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ESPN

I’m not accusing anybody of anything, perhaps ESPN just happened to be the outlet that acquired the Braun leak and also ran the only headline questioning Braun and also all their writers legitimately believe that Braun appears more guilty than innocent, but it just looked funny to see all the headlines from other outlets and then ESPN’s.

As you already know, Ryan Braun of the Milwaukee Brewers will not be suspended by Major League Baseball after his positive drug test was overturned by arbitrator Shyam Das.

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As such, those who relentlessly moralized about Braun from the moment his positive test results were leaked surely took a step back and apologized for their hasty jump-to-conclusions approach, right?

Um … not quite.

They continue to do exactly the same thing even after the suspension was ruled null and void, primarily because every major media outlet reported that it was overturned due to a technicality and not science (1/2/3/4/5).

Almost immediately after the suspension was overturned, the stories started to pile in, sharply shifting in tone from being about Braun’s exoneration to Braun simply getting off on a stroke of luck. As such, the public continues to spew this rhetoric that Braun is definitely guilty of using drugs, it’s just that he wasn’t caught because of MLB’s incompetence.

The problem is that it’s not exactly true.

As many have already shown, the chain of custody is part of science, much like the process aspect of the scientific method is as important as the results, yet people don’t seem to care about that because … uh … science is hard and stuff (1/2/3/4/5).

Additionally, it actually is a matter of science for other reasons as well, as two relatively important findings have been omitted (willfully or not) from almost every news story and opinion piece on Braun. Will Carroll and Lester Munson both offer interesting findings on the decision via their own sources.

Sources have told Carroll that the defense showed that the circumstances which led to the positive drug test was able to be repeated using the errors of the handler, which he explained on WEEI.

Carroll’s information is not only relevant, but it’s monumentally important to the argument people are having over whether Braun case was overturned because of the chain of custody or because of doubts involving the actual sample. Carroll’s sources explain quite explicitly that their failure to keep up with the chain of custody caused a failure in the integrity of the sample. Then, not only was the sample’s validity questionable, but they were able to replicate the results and show how it happened. Thus, not only was it a failure in the process, but in the results as well.

In essence, this would break the case of anybody left moralizing, which is a reason I find it curious that nobody wants to run it. For Carroll’s part, he says Fox Sportsisn’t silencing him, he was just beaten to the punch, but I preferred his insight over the article by David Epstein and Joe Lemire that actually was run.

Why does nobody want to talk about this? It’s beyond me.

Furthermore, Munson reports that Braun offered his DNA to check whether the urine was actually his, but was refused, suggesting that there were further questions about the legitimacy of the sample.

A failure to follow the delivery procedure seems like a technicality. Does it mean that Braun was clean and had not used any prohibited substance?

The failure to follow the delivery procedure casts significant doubt on the integrity of the collection procedure. That alone might have been enough for Braun to prevail in the arbitration. But Braun’s side went one step further. He and his lawyers, sources say, offered a DNA sample that could have been compared to the urine sample to determine whether the urine came from Braun. It was a bold move by Braun attorneys David Cornwell and Christopher Lyons. But instead of agreeing to a DNA test that would have determined conclusively whether it was Braun’s urine that tested positive, MLB declined the offer. The refusal to agree to the DNA test likely pushed the arbitrator toward a ruling for Braun. It was also a major first step for Braun in the effort to clear his name. He and his attorneys can now argue that he was clean and that MLB deliberately denied him the opportunity to prove that scientifically.

Odd.

If we accept those two pieces of information as true (which I have no reason to doubt), it’s a bit of a no-brainer for the arbitrator, in my opinion. Not only could Braun have potentially won solely on the grounds that the entire methodology was compromised by the handler of the sample, but additionally, the test results were duplicated by the defense, giving ample reason to suspect that the positive test was useless. Adding the fact that the MLB didn’t allow Braun to prove his innocence by checking the DNA to confirm it was his urine, and everything Das decided becomes quite clear.

Even if you don’t fully believe Carroll or Munson, because for whatever reason you think you have sources that they don’t, it’s more than enough doubt for me to not write articles that basically say Braun’s definitely still guilty.

And no, I’m not talking about angry Twitter commenters or angry bloggers, but mainstream sportswriters (1/2/3/4/5).

Why? Who knows? Perhaps blindly believing Braun got off the hook on a technicality is more interesting than the details of how and why things actually happened.

Either way, it’s inexplicable to me that the process worked and Braun still ends up as the bad guy to 89% of the people out there (at least according to one poll). The public chooses to spew religiously charged hate, conspiracy theories, and goes around blindly calling him a liar when they don’t even bother to check out all the facts and what we actually know.

People know for sure that he used steroids, people know for sure that he got off on a technicality, and people know for sure that he lied to them at his press conference. Apparently just like they knew for sure he was going to be suspended for 50 games.

I guess it’s just frustrating to me to see the blatant denial of logic and reason that’s thrown right in their faces, all so that they can feel okay with the assumptions they ran with after the positive test results were announced. The fervent and insistent nature of it just shocks me.